30 Kerr Street, Portrush, Co. Antrim, BT56 8DG

30 Kerr Street is a mid-Victorian two-storey terraced townhouse with attic, built in 1867 and located on the east side of Kerr Street in Portrush town centre, overlooking the harbour. It forms part of a terrace of three dwellings of special interest as one of the earliest surviving examples of Victorian waterfront development in the town.

The building is square on plan with a two-storey return to the rear. The pitched natural slate roof is fitted with blue and black angled ridge tiles and has a rendered chimney stack with six clay pots. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods are mounted on a moulded eaves course. The walling is ruled-and-lined cement render on a contrasting plinth.

The principal elevation faces west and is three openings wide at each floor. A canted oriel window to the first floor centre has a leaded flat roof and rests on consoles to the jambs of the window beneath. The ground floor left window is a two-light opening in a moulded architrave with a projecting painted sill, plain entablature and cornice. The doorcase to the ground floor right is accessed by two steps laid with modern tiles. It comprises a bolection-moulded four-panel timber door with a bronze knocker, surmounted by a transom light inscribed "30". The door is flanked by panelled pilasters and surmounted by a corniced canopy on scrolled acanthus leaf console brackets. Windows throughout are uPVC replacements in moulded architraves with projecting painted sills.

A three-light dormer window has been added to the front and rear roof slopes. The north and south elevations are abutted by adjoining buildings (HB03/10/005C and HB03/10/005A respectively). The east (rear) elevation has a skylight to the centre of the ridge line and three irregularly arranged windows at third floor level, with a two-storey return below.

The front elevation is set back slightly from the street with a plinth laid in modern black and white square tiles. A cast-iron flat handrail with ornate cast-iron balusters is mounted on a painted render plinth wall at each corner. To the rear, a high rubblestone wall with concrete coping encloses the yard.

The terrace was built in 1867–68 as Portrush began to develop following the opening of the railway line in 1855. Originally named Abercorn Place, it is first shown on the 1896 town plan of Portrush. In 1867, all three properties were valued vacant and unfinished at £25 each and were leased from James Moore, the likely developer. The first recorded occupier of number 30 was the Reverend Mr Craig in 1871, followed by John Dunlop, Miss Lecky, Mrs Given, and Miss Matilda Cunningham. The building was vacant at the 1901 census. Victoria and Alice Stewart occupied the property by 1904, and the 1911 census records 59-year-old Alice, a spinster living on her savings with her young niece. Subsequent occupiers included James E Stewart, Charles McFarlane, Andrew P Campbell, and Ellen Lyons. Charles J Macfarlane and Marion Stewart Macfarlane purchased the freehold in 1928.

In the 1930s, the accommodation comprised three receptions, seven bedrooms, a kitchen, scullery, pantry, and WC. In 1945, the rear was converted into a kitchenette and two bedrooms, and the house was let furnished at £4 per month to include hot water and linen. An architectural survey in the early 1970s noted the upper-storey oriel windows as typical of Portrush and Portstewart. The property was listed in 1977. Since the first survey photograph was taken, the windows have been replaced with uPVC, and a dormer window was added in the late 1970s. These alterations, along with the replacement fenestration, detract from the building's original character, though it otherwise displays the proportions and detailing typical of the mid-Victorian period.